Tullio Pinelli Movies

The elfin, irrepressible and very popular Italian comic Roberto Benigni and the similarly popular Paolo Villaggio star in this, the last of celebrated director Federico Fellini's films. The film's dreamlike story follows the meanderings of the moon-struck (or lunatic) Salvini (Benigni). As it opens, Salvini is out in a local wood near his village, appreciating nature, when he spies a group of men standing around looking intently at something. They are watching the window of a house where a portly woman is putting on a striptease for their pleasure. While he watches this, he has a memory of his grandmother. One adventure follows another, but Salvini is never crushed by events which would leave anyone less in love with life in the madhouse - because he is already slightly mad. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Leading man Gabriel Byrne adds a "Harlequin Romance" dash to the two-part, six-hour TV movie Christopher Columbus. Seeking out a swifter route to the lucrative Indies, Genoa-born Columbus begs King John of Portugal (Max Von Sydow) to finance a westbound expedition. Failing this, he turns to Spain's Queen Isabella (Faye Dunaway), who is entranced by Columbus' near-religious fervor. After the famous 1492 expedition, Columbus is bankrolled for future forays into the New World, which win him both adulation and vilification. Originally telecast May 19 and 20, 1985, Christopher Columbus was filmed on location in Spain, Malta and the Dominican Republic, making full use of a $15 million budget. It isn't an earth-shattering cinematic experience, but is lots more worthwhile (and less ponderous) than the brace of Columbus biopics inflicted upon movie audiences in 1992. Those concerned with political correctness should be satisfied with the film's second half, which explores the more sinister elements of chauvinistic colonization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This biographical essay tackles the early life of Mother Teresa in her Yugoslavian homeland (she was born at Skopje in 1910). Her mother sent her to care for an aunt who was suffering from tuberculosis, a disease that young Agnes Gongia (Mother Teresa) contracted as a result of her exposure. She angrily turned against her mother for sending her to care for the aunt, but her mother was also responsible for her cure. She put Gongia in a convent in the mountains where she was cloistered with the rest of the nuns, and although she was healed in the process, she came away hating a cloistered life. Until that time, her career prospects had tended toward professional singing -- she had a striking voice and actually sang for awhile with an orchestra conducted by her cousin, someone that aroused her romantic interest. Her true vocation did not come to the fore until she talked to a priest (Rossano Brazzi) who had just returned from India, and she realized that she wanted to help others as a nun, but in a very practical way -- perhaps by handling cases that no one else wanted (not unlike caring for her sick aunt). It would not be long then, before Calcutta was to benefit from young Gongia's calling. (Mother Teresa) died in India on Friday, Sept. 5, 1997. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A presumptuous American actress falls for a handsome Italian banker before embarking on the misadventure of a lifetime in this comedy of errors starring Goldie Hawn and Giancarlo Giannini. Anita (Hawn) is an American actress vacationing in Rome. When the free-spirited screen star sets her sights on a friendly banker named Guido (Giannini) who's currently en route to visit his ailing father, she agrees to join him on his trip without realizing that her handsome traveling companion is a married man. In the days that follow Anita and Guido will form a special bond as their journey together leads them from one comic disaster to the next. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The famed Italian film director Pietro Germi (his sharply observant and satirical films include The Immoralist, and Divorce Italian Style) began work on this comedy, but died before he could do more than write the screenplay. However, he lived long enough to choose Mario Monicelli as his successor. In the story, four friends keep their friendship alive and their Tuscan town lively by means of an endless series of practical jokes and pranks of various sorts. Perozzi (Philippe Noiret) works on the night desk of a newspaper, reporting on crime. Mascetti (Ugo Tognazzi), an aristocrat, has seen better days. They are joined in mischief by Melandri (Gastone Moschin) and Necci (Duilio DelPrete), an architect and a cafe-owner by profession respectively. When the town doctor (Adolfo Celi) manages to outwit the collective efforts of the four, he is soon invited to join their little club. The rhythms of life in a cheerful provincial town are effectively unveiled in this zany and affectionate film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

What started out as a one-night stand grows more complicated as television news-reporter Luigi (Gianni Morandi) encounters the traditional values not only of his girlfriend (Stefania Casini), but of the tiny provincial fishing village in which she lives. Through a series of events, he comes to prefer the more settled values of the countryside to the swinging ways of the big city. This film is notable as the first film appearance of the Italian pop singer Gianni Morandi. This Italian language film has no dubbing or subtitles. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Shirley MacLaine plays Charity Hope Valentine who, despite her job at a seedy dime-a-dance joint, is an incurable optimist. Charity never stops looking for true love and never seems to look for it in the right places. We first see her in the company of Charlie (Dante DiPaolo), a slimeball who steals her purse and pushes her into the Central Park pond. Next she stumbles into a one-night stand with Vittorio Vidal (Ricardo Montalban), an egotistical movie star; this comes to nothing when Vittorio's contrite girlfriend Ursula (Barbara Bouchet) comes calling, forcing Charity to spend the night hiding in the closet. Desperate to escape the dance hall, Charity heads to an employment agency, where a bureaucratic clerk (Alan Hewitt) informs her that she has no qualifications. Unhappily, Charity heads for the elevator, where she becomes trapped with the very shy -- and very claustrophobic -- Oscar Lindquist (John McMartin). Once they've gotten out of the stalled elevator, Charity begins dating Oscar, never telling him of her checkered past or her sordid dance-hall job. Oscar eventually finds out but assures her that it doesn't matter. However, at the engagement party held at the dance hall, Oscar's puritanical streak emerges. He walks out on Charity, leaving her alone and heartbroken once more. With the help of a group of flower children (among them Bud Cort and Kristoffer Tabori), Charity is able to pick herself up and start living "Hopefully Ever After." Sweet Charity was adapted from the 1965 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the 1957 Fellini flick Nights of Cabiria. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This romantic situation comedy finds Giovanni (Alberto Sordi) extremely jealous when his wife Raffaella (Monica Vitti) admits her infatuation over their handsome neighbor Valerio (Silvano Tranquilli). Giovanni spies on his wife and recruits their 10-year-old son in an effort to stop his wife's good-neighbor policy. Giovanni's once liberal and progressive outlook changes drastically with his wife's candid revelation. The two eventually consider a temporary separation after a series of incidents which seem to prove their incompatibility. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

When Paola (Daniele Gaubert) feels her husband Marco (Philippe Leroy) is neglecting her, she willingly falls for his best friend Alberto (Horst Buchholz). Marco allows the affair to proceed and Paola experiences feelings of love she never knew were possible. She returns to her marital commitments but allows her romantic fantasies of Alberto and a Lesbian lover to continue. Marco soon experiences the positive benefits of his wife's imagination as their romantic romps take a favorable turn for the better. Nude scenes could mark this film as an exploitation feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Juliet of the Spirits is a fantastical showcase for Federico Fellini's vibrant imagery, starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, as the titular leading character. Juliet is a wealthy housewife who constantly fears her husband, Giorgio (Mario Pisu), is cheating on her. While she yearns for a peaceful intimate evening on the night of their 15th anniversary, the egotistical Giorgio has forgotten about it and instead arrives home with his eccentric friends. After a trip to a séance, Juliet is haunted by images from the spirit world, including obsessions from her past involving religion and her late relatives. With her sisters and mother prying into her life, Juliet seems to be seeking an inner peace amidst all the sexual temptations surrounding her. She meets her neighbor, Suzy (Sandra Milo), a showy pleasure-seeker who lives in a sensual playhouse. It appears that all of Juliet's family, friends, and fantasies demand that she loosen up and embrace sexual freedom, yet she remains chaste and dowdy, lamenting over her unfaithful husband. The reasons for Juliet's repression are not clearly defined by the narrative, despite glimpses into her supposed imagination. Forced to endure the constant bombardment of sexually charged imaginings, the demure Juliet retreats on her own. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Fresh off of the international success of La Dolce Vita, master director Federico Fellini moved into the realm of self-reflexive autobiography with what is widely believed to be his finest and most personal work. Marcello Mastroianni delivers a brilliant performance as Fellini's alter ego Guido Anselmi, a film director overwhelmed by the large-scale production he has undertaken. He finds himself harangued by producers, his wife, and his mistress while he struggles to find the inspiration to finish his film. The stress plunges Guido into an interior world where fantasy and memory impinge on reality. Fellini jumbles narrative logic by freely cutting from flashbacks to dream sequences to the present until it becomes impossible to pry them apart, creating both a psychological portrait of Guido's interior world and the surrealistic, circus-like exterior world that came to be known as "Felliniesque." 8 1/2 won an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as the grand prize at the Moscow Film Festival, and was one of the most influential and commercially successful European art movies of the 1960s, inspiring such later films as Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and even Lucio Fulci's Italian splatter film Un Gatto nel Cervello (1990). ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide